Big East makes it official: Temple subs for West Virginia in football this fall; joins conference for all sports in 2013

Jake Schoellkopf / APTemple head coach Steve Addazio accepts a trophy after Temple defeated Wyoming 37-15 on Dec. 17 in the New Mexico Bowl at Albuquerque.

New York -- Temple University, a school with a football program once considered so poor that it was booted out of the Big East Conference, was welcomed back today – partly so it can rescue the league's fall football schedule.

The Owls will take the place of West Virginia, whose release to join the Big 12 left the Big East scrambling to find a replacement that would provide a seventh league game for its members.

Big East commissioner John Marinatto said during a news conference at Madison Square Garden in New York City that the conference will add Temple for football only in 2012 and for all sports in 2013.

That means the Owls, no longer a football pushover, will become the 12th game on this year’s Syracuse University schedule. Since SU would have traveled to West Virginia this season, the Temple game will be in Philadelphia.

The conference football landscape has been in turmoil since Sept. 18, when Syracuse and Pittsburgh announced plans to move to the Atlantic Coast Conference. On Oct. 6, Texas Christian University said it was reneging on a November 2010 decision to join the Big East and instead would become part of the Big 12.

Then on Oct. 28, West Virginia announced that it was leaving the Big East to join the Big 12, threatening to reduce the league’s football membership to just five teams.

While SU and Pitt said they would not buck a league rule requiring a 27-month waiting period to bolt, WVU said it wanted out this year and took the matter to court. The Big East filed a countersuit, and a resolution allowing the Mountaineers to leave June 30 after paying some $20 million was reached in February.

The conference has since added six new members for 2013 – Central Florida, Houston, Memphis and Southern Methodist for all sports, and Boise State and San Diego State for football only.

But letting WVU out this year left a one-game gap in the schedules of all seven remaining members.

Thus the addition of Temple, one of the original six members when the Big East football conference was formed in 1991 but voted out after 14 seasons because of futility on the field and at the gate.

The Owls’ football fortunes were reversed over the six seasons following their 2004 Big East dismissal by coach Al Golden, a savvy recruiter who rebuilt the program. That resurgence continued under former SU assistant Steve Addazio, who left his job as Florida’s offensive coordinator in 2011 to replace Golden, now at Miami.

Temple finished 9-4 in 2011, blowing out Maryland and Army and losing by four points at home to Penn State. The Owls defeated Wyoming, 35-17, in the New Mexico Bowl. Temple also sported winning marks in 2010 (8-4) and 2009 (9-4).

According to a release from the Mid-American Conference, where Temple has played football since 2007, the Owls will pay $6 million for the speedy exit. Temple is a member of the Atlantic 10 Conference for all other sports and presumably will have to negotiate an exit price with that league as well.

Marinatto said the Big East will help Temple with its MAC exit fee, partly through future revenue distributions, and the commissioner all but confirmed that SU and Pitt will find a receptive ear for negotiations to leave the league next year, rather than in 2014.

It is widely believed SU and Pitt will seek an early release, leaving the Big East with a 12-team league in 2013.

Marinatto said the Big East presidents, who voted to accept Temple on Wednesday morning, would be “open to discussions” with both schools.

The commissioner also added that the league, while “taking a pause” in expansion for now, could possibly seek a 14th football member to join with football-only Navy in 2015, making two seven-team divisions.

Addazio said at the news conference he looks forward to returning to a conference he coached in during the 1990s while a member of Paul Pasqualoni’s staff at SU. Addazio’s son, Louis, is a redshirt freshman tight end at SU, and Pasqualoni is back in the league at Connecticut.

“We’ve already started that teasing back and forth,” Addazio said of kidding between he and his son.

SU and Temple have played 36 times since 1944, and the Orange leads the series 25-10-1. Two of the Temple victories came during its final three seasons in the Big East, as the Owls upset SU 17-16 at home in 2002 and turned the trick in its last season in the league with a 34-24 upset in 2004.